LaFleur Trying to Level Playing Field for Rookies
GREEN BAY, Wis. – When the dust settled on all the machinations that led to 53-man rosters around the NFL last year, a whopping 30.9 percent of those players entered the league as undrafted free agents. That’s almost as many as the final four rounds of the draft combined.
It could be a different story this year, however, due to COVID-19. No different than this year’s draft class, the undrafted players missed out on a rookie camp, organized team activities and a minicamp. Further setting back the rookies, the team won’t hit the practice field until Saturday, which is more than two weeks later than normal, and there will be no preseason games to create roster-making magic. And if that’s not enough, following a typical training camp, any tie between a late-round pick or undrafted rookie and a veteran might go to the rookie based on salary and room for development. This year, because of the lack of prep time, the verdict could be rendered based on experience.
“I think this year’s class, especially the undrafted guys, they get screwed over more than anybody else,” receiver Allen Lazard, himself a former undrafted free agent, said on Sunday. “For those guys, the opportunities are going to be even more limited, which they already were to begin with, but obviously starting this late and everything, getting ready for the season, those opportunities come far and few between.”
Coach Matt LaFleur is doing what he can to level the playing field.
“We’ve had extra meetings with those guys every evening and in the morning, as well, so they’re getting about 2 extra hours of meeting time per day,” he said on Tuesday.
That will help with the mental prep, since mentally prepared players perform faster on the field. But what about overcoming the lack of practice time and preseason game action? LaFleur has a plan in mind for that, too.
On Saturday, players will hit the practice field for the first time. To ease the players into the ratcheted-up intensity, the first practice can last for 90 minutes, the second for 105 and the third for 120. When the team goes to pads on Tuesday, it goes back to 90 minutes for Day 1, 105 for Day 2, 120 for Day 3 and so on, with a maximum of 150 minutes (or 2 1/2 hours). LaFleur doesn’t intend to keep his veterans on the field for that long, though, with the goal of keeping them healthy and fresh for the season while creating opportunity where it had been lost for the team’s long shots.
“We’ll get the veterans out of there – the guys that we know what they can do – and we’ll hold the young guys back and have some post-practice scrimmages or periods for those young guys, not only to get them the experience but to make sure that we get a good evaluation on them as well,” LaFleur said.
